Stille Hochzeit - Zum Teufel mit Stalin

The script is full of good ideas and intentions, all in all about half-fulfilled: the story-line is somewhat linear, and lacking many of the important joints of a well articulated scenario - but, on the positive side, it's entertaining and rich in content, able to combine into a well balanced recipe the tragedy and comedy.

To my extremely agreeable surprise, Horatiu proved himself a true director. All his hesitations and uncertainties are of the "inherent to a debut" type - and remarkably few in number. Definitely, he shows a good critical sense, trimming away many of the script's faults, or even speculatively converting them into positive qualities. Further, he has a powerful visual sense, and a solid capacity of synthesis.

One has commented about the movie's "theatralism" - it deliberately departs realism, by recourse to many stylish exaggerations, significant and expressive as such, but of an unlikelihood bordering impossibility. So it is, but this seeming failure remained only one step away of being converted into what it actually purported to be: a daring mean of expression, in the best vein of elaborated style. It would have been enough to insist a bit more on the present-day mayor's narrative about the depicted happenings, stressing the fact that everything is seen through the distorting lens of one's own affective memory.

Still, it's undeniable that Horatiu creates a world of its own, bringing it to focus with extreme expressiveness... It's hard to forget the tasteful beauty of the erotic scenes - topped by the splendid image of Meda Victor being literally "drowned in wheat" by Alex Potocean's thrusts. And the top-scene, the "Mute Wedding" itself, arrives to be a successful tour de force. Definitely, it's a movie to be seen - and savored with relish.

An incredible tragicomedy, which brings tears into one's eyes, both of laughter and grief.

The film appeals to the whole set of emotions a person can feel. It embraces the Romanian spirit into its smallest details and its deepest inherent leitmotifs, from the town's mute to the town's whore, from the typical Romanian town saloon to the typical Romanian wedding. Sudden transitions from funny situations to tragic ones and back to comical throughout the film give you a roller-coaster sensation. And all this is 'garnished' with apparitions of death represented as a bride, inserted in the most discreet way possible. These apparitions are the only clue that you receive about the ending. And you don't need more.

All I can say is this film made me proud of Romanian cinematography.

There will be others, I hope- since Malaele did such a good job with this first film of his.

The movie tells more than it just shows, even if the story is just a little bit loose in places. The essence permeates just fine and the strong symbolism it uses (like in the wedding silent feast or the silly mute comedy scenes), all the thick strokes still leave room for subtleties and interpretation.

It naturally flows from the savorous comedy bucolical scenes towards the dark drama at the end. It may very well be regarded as a critique of the Romanian capacity to adapt, our viral submissiveness that can make us just go with the wave, instead of reacting and fighting back. The amenability slowly mutates into fear and corruption. As a matter of fact, didn't we all leave with the circus? We let it control our lives and dictate the rules, we just accepted the yoke and the satire stopped doing the magic trick at some point.

Dead and buried, but the communism still wanders around. There are still uprooted people for which the absence is a state of being. People like the quiet mourners, who cannot meet today's society and it's new coutumes without the presence of the dis consideration depicted in the final scene.

For me this movie was of a great impact. I left the cinema and have not been able to say a word for more than 15 minutes. I was fascinated. It gave me a deep, profound feeling of genuine art, with incredible complex features gathered together in these 90 minutes of displayed images. A lot of meaning - I am sure for non-Romanians has not the same amount of meaning - and an authentic way of touching the most sensitive parts of the Romanian people, with humor on the most critical aspects of the most absurd time, the communist time of Romania. Malaiele is a great artist, but this film is his masterpiece. I highly recommend you to watch this movie. It is not just a movie, it is a lifetime experience.

This is maybe the best movie I have seen. It made me get an IMDb account to rate it 10 stars. I don't care about technical judgments about this movie. It's a Romanian emotional roller-coaster which pictures our recent history in a tragical and comical frame. It's one of the few movies I have ever watched at the cinema where at the end of which lots of people applauded. Romanians are recognizing themselves in the story and they find coherence in their identity and this makes the movie a masterpiece and a great service to the people of this country.

One more thing that I appreciate in this movie is a reparation done within the history of the subjective experience. People from the village were at best ignoring communists and poking fun of them if they were not hating them. Nobody was happy to give away their land and village men knew what communism can bring, since they saw it with their own eyes when they fought on the Eastern front.

Most people hated communism and they tried to live a normal life in silence, just like it happens in the movie. Humor was maybe the best survival resource.

I live in Romania and I know from personal experience and thorough study what Russians did bring under the name of communism. I don't try to convince anyone that the so called communism was criminal and implemented locally with the help of the weakest links (like in the movie), low educated people with low morals, since there is enough literature today for anyone that has any doubt. Of course, as somebody mentions here, Romanians too did their horrible crimes on the Eastern front, but this does not mean that what the people like the ones in the movie endured, did any kind of humane justice. The people that fought on the Eastern front are a good source, since they were regular soldiers, not vicious criminals and even if they were vicious criminals, they could anyway still have seen the "benefits" that "communism" has brought to Russia.

I understand why some people consider it propagandistic, but in my view this is a good artistical work upon the subjective experience and life of ordinary Romanians in 1953.